Purifying
by Padfoot Reincarnated
Summary: Sometimes she wishes he was dead, but death is peaceful, and Sirius has never been peaceful. Sirius's mother and Regulus empty the house of any trace of him just a week after he runs away.


**First, if anyone reading my Star Wars story is here, I'm sorry I haven't updated in a while. There should be an update sometime in the next week, I am in the middle of revising this chapter and it needs some major overhauls. School is out Wednesday, so I should finally have time to do everything I want with it.**

**This story involves Sirius's mother and Regulus cleaning out his room about a week after he leaves. It starts out kinda slow but I think it gets better. Happy Memorial Day! Please read and review; constructive criticism is especially appreciated.**

My son is gone. He was only fifteen years old and he is gone and he isn't mine anymore.

My husband says he is dead to us, but as much as I try I cannot convince myself he is dead. I almost wish he was. Dead is safe. Dead isn't, _I hate you_, Dead isn't hearing him call another boys' parents mum and dad, Dead isn't my only baby, my sweet, precious boy choosing to hurt me and never looking back.

Dead is peaceful. Sirius was never peaceful.

It's only been a week since I lost him, just seven days, more painful than anything you can imagine. _You _haven't lost a son, have you? Not like this.

Seven days of wanting to go to him and beg him to come back, seven days of knowing it wouldn't do anything if I did. Seven days of his father fuming at me because I couldn't forget him, seven days of almost wishing I could.

It's been seven days and he told me I'd spent enough time moping and I'd better get to it. So here I am. I don't want to do it.

Sirius _never _cleaned his room. He said it was comfortable. I still don't understand that.

It doesn't look like he took very much when he left, but the closet door is flung open, and it's mostly empty. All that's inside are a few dusty robes, clustered together at the very end.

I'll start here.

The first one I touch sends a jolt of recognition up my arm and sends me reeling, mouth open and eyes crying dry tears.

He wore this on his thirteenth birthday. We have—well, we _had _a picture of Sirius and Regulus wearing their matching robes hanging in the front hall. He looked so handsome in it, so perfect. It was black, with green at the sleeves and collar. High necked, the family crest on the neck.

And he'd hated it.

_She is combing his hair. Years at Hogwarts have made him sloppy; she doesn't want to risk him looking like a mess in front of all the guests. Most of them are her husband's relatives, but her father is coming. She hasn't seen him in ages; he's never even met Sirius. Black and green. It isn't Sirius, but for today, she can pretend it is._

_He fidgets as she combs his hair, and when he finally sees himself in the mirror his face turns almost white. "Mum…please, no."_

_She clucks her tongue and tucks a wisp of his long hair behind his ear._

"_You look very handsome," she says, encouraging. She pats his head and he stands, facing her._

"_James is going to be here, Mum. He hates all this pureblood stuff. He'll probably just be wearing regular robes."_

_She rolled her eyes at him. "What's more important, Sirius: impressing James Potter or doing what you need to do as a member of this family? Though you seem to have forgotten that lately." She is getting angry now, and she wants to end this before they fight again. She hates fighting with him._

_But he is the one who ends it. He turns and stalks away, slamming the door behind him. She is left alone and small in the middle of the room, holding a comb and hoping he'll come back._

_That night she goes to the room he still shares with Regulus. He is there alone, sitting on his bed, his back to the door. She is quiet, and he doesn't notice she is there until she touches his shoulder. He jumps and she sees in his hand a pair of bright silver scissors and in the other the beautiful robes he'd worn._

_He'd cut off the family crest, and he was busy snipping away at the cuffs._

"_What are you doing?" she asks, frightened at the way he looks at her so blank and unafraid._

_He shrugs and looks past her. He is taller than her, she dimly realizes for the first time._

"_Fixing it," he says. Fixing it and that's all. That's all._

Emptying Sirius's room is both the biting pain of fire and slow numb decay. I am used to the second; he has been giving it to all of us for the past few years.

I rub the smooth fabric of the robes for a moment longer before gathering my resolve and tossing all of them into a box in one swift movement. I close it quickly, and slide it into the hall.

Regulus is there, sitting on the floor next to Sirius' door with his back to the wall. He is holding his knees to his chest and his hands are clasped together.

He looks up when he sees me. "Hello, Mother," he says quietly, his voice trembling. "Mum, I don't think you should do this. He might come back. He might."

It breaks my heart to see my child like this, but more than that to know that it is the fault of Sirius, the best and brightest, _my _best and brightest.

I pull Regulus to his feet and hug him, holding his head to my chest. "I miss him too, sweetie," I tell him, unable to hide the way my voice is wavering even more than his. "But I don't think he's coming back…and if he is—do you really think your father—" but some things aren't meant to be said.

I search his face for some sign of Sirius, some almost invisible hint that he'll leave me, too, leave me and never look back.

But he has none of Sirius's fire. Where Sirius was open, radiant and glowing with love and hate and rage and passion, Regulus is cloaked; watching me, but I can't see him. He has nothing that made Sirius betray me, but Regulus doesn't have the things that Sirius had that made me love him, either.

But in the end, he is my son. My only son, now.

"Are you going to leave like Sirius did?" I whisper into his hair, so quietly I'm sure he won't hear me.

But he does, and he answers just as quietly. "I won't, Mother. I never will."

I squeeze him tighter, clutching him to me so as to force him to keep his promise.

"Do you want to help me with Sirius's room?" I ask him finally.

He hesitates, and nods.

We step in side by side, just fitting through the doorway. He looks up at me fearfully, and I try to find a reassuring smile to give him, but I find I don't have one.

I assemble another box, and we crouch down and begin to fill it. I am careful with the things I pack, laying them gently side by side in the box.

Regulus is simply grabbing things off the floor and flinging them in, and once or twice I hear glass breaking or paper crunching. But I don't stop him because his face is red and his hair is sweaty and I think he's crying.

I try not to look at things as I file them away. But I can't help it, and it hurts.

This toy broom is from his first birthday; these shoes are from his cousin's wedding. This cage is from when he tried to smuggle that _thing _into the house without letting me know, and here's the broken china he smashed and attempted to fix but turned green and soft instead.

And this—I don't know what this is. A small box, wrapped in fiery red paper, a giant sloppy bow covering most of it. And written in Sirius's sloppy scroll on the bottom, _To Mum, Happy 34th Birthday, Love Sirius._

He never gave this to me. He said he didn't get anything.

I open it tentatively, peeling back the tape so the wrapping paper doesn't break. Silly, but that's how I've always done it. Regulus is pretending not to watch.

It's a bracelet, made of pressed flowers, and it looks like glass. A note is attached--_made this in Herbology, don't worry, I didn't get caught—Sirius._

I almost smile as I slide it up my wrist. It's beautiful, bright and clear like everything seemed to be around him.

But I slide it off, and slip in into the box. He didn't want me to have it. And I want to respect the wishes of the Dead, of course.

_Her birthday doesn't get off to a good start. She and Sirius fight early that morning, a shouting, screaming battle in the grey hours of the morning, her face white and his red. Stupid, really; not worth the way the air around them hangs uncomfortably the rest of the day. He wants to go to a game of Quidditch with James next week. She won't let him; the Potters loyalty to their pureblood ancestry is questionable lately._

_Regulus wakes to their voices, and his arrival stops both of them abruptly. She leaves, unable to bear the way no one is saying anything and the air is ripe with insults unsaid._

_She can't stand that he might actually mean them._

_They ignore each other all day, steadfastly pretending the other isn't in the same room. It works, for the most part. If they somehow end up alone, one or the other of them leaves._

_Dinner is a tense affair. Kreacher has spent the entire day preparing a feast, lamb and soup and a light and airy cake. Neither of them are really eating. Sirius picks at his plate, stirring the soup slowly and staring into the ripples. She manages a few mouthfuls before she can't make herself pretend to want to eat anymore. The thought of one more mouthful makes her sick, and really, she is just too tired. _

_She pushes her plate away, and ignores the half-concerned looks her husband is giving her. Kreacher takes the plate away immediately, and he cares more about her right now than this whole damn family does. _

_Regulus alone doesn't seem to have noticed the way the table has been silent with the absence of talk or how she and his brother have been locked in a virtual standoff the entire day._

"_Here, Mum," he says, shyly handing her a small, navy blue bag. "I got you a present."_

_She managed a weak smile, and pulls out an emerald and diamond necklace. "Thank you, Regulus," she says quietly, "It's beautiful."_

_His mouth turns up in a smile at her approval. "You're welcome," he says, "I got in Diagon Alley last week when you weren't looking."_

_She smiles and squeezes his hand._

_Her husband has stopped eating by now, and he is staring at Sirius with an odd expression on his face. "Do you have something for your mother?" He asks softly._

_Sirius stares straight back, bold and unafraid of anything. "No."_

_The taller man stands straight up, deliberately dropping his fork. The room is silent._

"_Why not?" he asks quietly. "I really think you should, Sirius. She is your mother. I think you should give her something to show her your gratitude._

_This isn't just about birthdays or presents, and everyone knows it, but Sirius has never been one for subtlety. He brings it out into the open._

"_I don't see why I should," he says, eyes flashing and face glowing. "Neither of you give me anything to be grateful for. You treat my friends and everything I believe in like dirt."_

"_Son—"_

_Sirius is red-faced now, livid. "No! Shut up, now, just shut up! You put me down with every other word that come out of your mouth, you hate everything I stand for, you're rude to my friends—and I think you're sick, both of you, the way you talk about muggles and half-bloods and mud—muggleborns. I **hate **you."_

_He's crying—that's funny, she doesn't remember the last time she saw him cry. She thinks maybe she's crying too, but it's hard to be sure of anything._

_But she's angry, too. He has no right to say those things about her, about any of them. He is their son and it is their choice how to raise him and **this **is his family, no matter what he wants. He has no right—he has no right—_

_Before she can really think what she's doing she picks up the nearest plate and flings it at his head. He ducks and it shatters against the wall and he runs and his father is chasing him and Regulus is screaming._

_She doesn't move. She stands numb near the table, her hand on her lips and tears pouring down her face._

"_I love you," she whispers, "I love you."_

I don't want to look at the box anymore. I unconsciously slip the bracelet into my pocket even as I toss the empty box in with all of Sirius's other things.

I decide to adopt Regulus's style of cleaning then. Flinging things in the box without pausing to look, not caring what happens to them.

Memories are unavoidable. I remember when we bought him this broom wax, and here is the beater's club we bought him after he made Quidditch team, and there are the gloves he brought home from school last time he came.

Regulus stops, I notice. Staring at a photograph, just staring.

I pull it out of his hands. It's Regulus and Sirius at school, standing in front of a fire. Flames dance behind them.

"I gave this to him since he liked it so much," Regulus says quietly. "I didn't know he kept it."

I glance at him for a moment, then rip it in halves—quarters—eighths—and throw the scraps into the box.

"It's just a picture," I say, "Just a picture."

We resume in silence.

Under his bed I begin to find things I don't recognize. Pictures of Sirius and James, occasionally the two of them with boys I don't know. A sneakascope—when did I ever buy Sirius a sneakascope? When did he get this?

And dirty muggle sneakers and a Gryffindor scarf and a small snitch which doesn't move and boxes and boxes of prank items.

Who is this boy? I never knew this part of him, this boy who read comic books about muggles and read transfiguration books about Animagi of all things.

Who is he?

Why didn't I know him?

All the stories behind these things that I never knew and now will never know. Why?

My own son and I never knew him.

Maybe it's good he left. Maybe now he can be free.

My husband appears in the door shortly after we finish. "What are you planning on doing with all that?" he asks coldly, folding his arms.

"Taking it to the attic," I answer promptly.

He shakes his head. "Burn it. I won't have that filth in my household."

I don't want to fight him; that's all I've been doing the last few years and I'm tired of it. I look the other way when Regulus picks the fragments of the photo of him and Sirius out of the box, and then we drag the boxes out into the back yard. The bracelet is heavy in my pocket as I set the fire.

Regulus's mouth is open as the flames spring towards the sky. Dancing laughing flames. Sirius is happy to be burning.

I haven't really spoken to Regulus in years. I have been too busy with Sirius, preparing Sirius, fighting Sirius, trying not to love Sirius.

But Regulus is all I have now. He will have to do. It isn't too late for him, I don't think.

I smooth his hair back and put an arm around his shoulder.

"It's beautiful, isn't it?" I say softly. No more tears.

Sirius has gone away as he lived. Burning.


End file.
